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The 20-year-old spinner Shoaib Bashir with fewer first-class wickets than James Anderson’s five-wicket hauls in Tests is set to make his Test debut in Visakhapatnam against India. Bashir got a chance as veteran England spinner Jack Leach got injured. Ahead of Bashir’s first appearance on the international stage, England skipper Ben Stokes revealed how a viral video of him getting Alastair Cook’s wicket caught his attention.
"To be perfectly honest, Abu Dhabi was the first real live look I got at Bash," Stokes was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo. "The first time I saw him was on Twitter (X). I think the County Championship [account] put a little clip together of him bowling against Sir Alastair.
“I'm in a WhatsApp group with Keysy and Baz. I actually did forward the clip on and said, 'have a look at this, this could be something we could work with on our India tour' and it just progressed from there. He got selected on the Lions tour and obviously the coaches on that tour fed back everything to us.”
Last year, he made his first-class debut against Essex. He did not get the wicket of Cook but bowled tight lines to the former England opener.
While preparing for the Visakhapatnam Test, Bashir dismissed Stokes during the nets. However, Stokes revealed that he got the better of him a few times in Abu Dhabi during the preparatory camp for the India tour.
Bashir was unavailable for the Test series opener in Hyderabad due to visa issues. While the team travelled to India, Bashir did not get his visa because of his Pakistan heritage. He had to travel back to London to get his passport stamped at the Indian High Commission there before arriving in India last week.
The Somerset off-spinner has 10 wickets to his name from six first-class games. He has an ordinary average of 67 in the red-ball format.
England Playing XI for 2nd Test against India
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Ben Foakes, Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson.
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